


Light and Shadow

by Noble_Lady_of_Magvel



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Male Friendship, No Sex, No Slash, No Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 14:39:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4670402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noble_Lady_of_Magvel/pseuds/Noble_Lady_of_Magvel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The boy with the light-coloured hair hesitated, and in that moment the distance between him and the boy with the shadowed eyes grew until he was too far away to reach. "At that time... I should have called out to him... I kept on replaying that entire scenario in my mind over and over..." What if Naruto had called out to Sasuke on that day at the playground? NaruSasu friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light and Shadow

The boy with the light-coloured hair straddled the swings with his chin resting on his hands, his legs kicking the sand listlessly as he watched the parents collect their children from the playground.

Shikamaru, Choji, Kiba, they all left one by one while Naruto kept his eyes downcast to avoid the grown-ups' cold stares. As their footsteps faded away, he felt a pang in his chest, one that came from longing for the love and attention that he would never have.

Eventually the last parent arrived with outstretched arms to carry his young son on his shoulders and Naruto was left behind. When the lines he drew in the sand became darkened with the shadows of the setting sun, he jumped off the swing to make the lonely journey home.

He saw him then, high up on top of the metal slide, the boy with the shadowy eyes haunted by a dark past. Sasuke. A smile stretched across his face and his heart swelled with joy when he realized that Sasuke was someone who understood him, who knew the pain of being alone because he was just like him.

"Hey Sasuke!" he called.

_Thump._

His sandalled feet had just hit the ground. "What?"

"Do you want to come over to my place?"

For a second, Sasuke's guarded features relaxed, but just as quickly, they tightened again into the mask of cold indifference he planned to wear until he took his revenge on his brother. "Why?"

Naruto hesitated.  _Because I want to be friends._ "Because I want to be friends," he blurted out, his inner thoughts as transparent as light through a glass window.

Sasuke glowered at him in return. Deep down he wanted to say yes, he was secretly scared and lonely all by himself in the empty ghost-town left behind after the massacre. But the young Uchiha was too proud to admit it, preferring to hide his weakness in mystery and shadows.

Naruto held his breath and waited for his answer, afraid he would say no, but Sasuke was not yet gone. The little boy who laughed and smiled and wanted nothing more than to make his father proud hadn't yet become the sullen loner who allowed his obsession with revenge to consume him. If Naruto had hesitated that Sasuke would have disappeared, but he didn't, and the lonely little boy is reached.

"Okay."

A friendship is born.

But as Sasuke ran after an overjoyed Naruto to his apartment in the city, his brother's words rang in his head,  _"Come before me when you have the same eyes as me, when you can wield the mangekyou sharingan."_ Because maybe the only reason he agreed was because of the secret written under the tatami mat of the main temple of the Nakano shrine.

Naruto had heard of the Uchiha massacre of course, but underneath his horror and sympathy he couldn't help but feel envious that for eight years Sasuke had two parents and also a brother who loved him. His own life had been a revolving door of nannies and housekeepers who never stayed long and never tried to hide their obvious dislike. He had never known love, never known family and it was an emptiness in his heart he yearned to fill.

.oOo.

The two boys couldn't be more different.

Sasuke is at the top of the class, the last in his bloodline and a genius that everybody admired. Ninjutsu, taijutsu, genjutsu, he could do it all and is always in the spotlight and singled out for praise. While Sasuke holds everybody's attention, Naruto sulks in the shadows, struggling at the bottom of the class, unimportant and never taken seriously.

On their own they view the world through only a narrow vision and are unable to see the complete reality. To Sasuke, people are either good or evil with nothing in between. And if Itachi killed his entire clan, then he is a villain who deserves to die. Naruto equates attention with love in a lifetime of being ignored and despised. He's a clown and a vandal because bad attention is better than no attention, because his deepest fear is disappearing and ceasing to exist. If his dream is to become Hokage, it's because then everybody would have to acknowledge him and his face carved on the mountain would be proof of his mark on the world.

But with each other, their respective personalities soften. If Naruto pulls pranks, it's because he's trying to make Sasuke smile. If Sasuke speaks out in anger, it's to stand up for Naruto when the grown-ups are needlessly hard on him. Together as friends they help each other widen each other's vision until they are able to see the whole picture.

Determined to graduate with Sasuke, Naruto practices his weakest ninjutsu, the bunshin no jutsu, until it becomes his strongest skill. His shadow clones are not mere illusions but flesh and blood, the highest calibre ninjutsu and he blows everyone away at the Genin exam with the sheer number of clones, exceeding all expectations. For the first time in his life, he's noticed in a good way, and as he hears the applause from the examiners and a private congratulations from Sarutobi, he realizes then that people aren't acknowledged because they're Hokage, they become Hokage because they're acknowledged.

Naruto and Sasuke are assigned to team seven with Sakura, and they think that it must be lucky seven to end up together. During Kakashi's initial test, they work together and manage to capture both bells between the three of them, but only two could pass. Kakashi makes them choose and Naruto is first to volunteer to sacrifice his spot, whirling the rope around his body to tie himself to the post because he is admittedly less skilled and deserving than his teammates. In response, Sasuke pulls out his kunai and cuts the rope, saying that if Kakashi is going to fail Naruto, he might as well fail him too because he would rather sit through the academy again than leave his friend behind. In the end, Kakashi passes them all. (And... he can't help but think that Obito would have been pleased, to see shinobi like these who refused to abandon their friends)

Kakashi asks the three genin what their goals are. At one time Sasuke would have answered "to kill a certain man," but not anymore. With the chaos of emotion and conflicted feelings calmed after sharing his burden with Naruto, he was able to recall something he had missed. When Itachi had turned away, he had tears in his eyes. Sasuke realized that his brother was crying, which puzzled him. No one whose heart is completely black would have been able to cry.

His goal isn't to kill his brother anymore, it's to find him and get the truth.

The opportunity appears when Orochimaru arrives in Konoha during the chunin exams and marks him with the curse seal.

.oOo.

Filled with an insatiable yearning, he seeks out Orochimaru's power. It takes an entire team to bring him back, and Naruto is the one to intercept him. "Sasuke, don't go. Please," Naruto begs, "I promised Sakura that I won't let you go."

"You're going to have to apologize to her then." Sasuke says, with cold eyes and colder words and continues to walk away.

The angry side of Naruto bursts out, a feral glare in his eyes and an equine snarl. "I'll break every bone in your body if I have to! Bastard, I'll beat you back to your old self! I won't let Orochimaru take you!" He spits out the words, trembling with emotion and...fear.

Sasuke whirls around to face him. "Why?" It's the same question he asked all those years ago.

"Because you're my best friend Sasuke, and I can't see you walk down the wrong path. Remember back when we were kids? Sharing ramen, sleeping over, talking about our dreams, we were inseparable and we always will be."

Sasuke chuckles. He's a Uchiha and the curse of hatred runs through his blood. He can't stop the words that come next. "I think you should know the reason why I became your friend in the first place." He explains the massacre again, but this time he doesn't leave out the part about the words under the temple's tatami mat.

Naruto's eyes widen and a chill runs down his spine. "So, all those years ago," his voice was choked, "you were only after my eyes."

"Yeah." Sasuke begins to draw chakra and transform. "Sorry Naruto, but you're going to have to die."

The resulting battle of chidori vs rasengan, then juinjutsu vs jinchuriki leaves Naruto utterly defeated. Sasuke bends over Naruto's unconscious forehead. "Naruto, I..." he begins. Then he cries because he can't bring himself to kill his closest friend.

It hurt to see Naruto's face crumple, because he was the one who understood him more than anyone. He clutched his chest, it pained him to see Naruto hurting, but he had to move on because he couldn't fight his instinct.

"This isn't goodbye forever," he whispers as he places his headband next to sleeping Naruto's face like a gift, "this is I'll see you again." He walks away, an unreasonable expression on his face and leaf headband on the ground knowing their paths would converge later in their lives.

 _What would have happened if Naruto wasn't his friend?_  The question haunts him for three years. And when he finally sees him again, he realizes it would have happened the exact same way.

Senju and Uchiha... Where there is one there was always the other.

Hashirama and Madara.

Kakashi and Obito.

Naruto and Sasuke. They have always existed together as friends and rivals. The light and the shadow, because where there is one there must always be the other.

_And that's all that she wrote..._


End file.
